humbly to give in my submission, and under the safe-conduct of your protection[1] to appear at the next Council of Constance, the Lord Most High being my defender. Desiring to attain this object in an orderly fashion, I have caused notices, copies of which I forward, to be posted up all over Prague in Latin and Czech, and to be forwarded through the other cities and announced in sermons.
However, I beseech your Majesty, humbly entreating you in the Lord, by the honour of God and the welfare of His holy Church, by the honour also of the kingdom of Bohemia, of which the King of kings has ordained you the heir, and the welfare and honour of which He, therefore, hath disposed you naturally to desire, that it may please you to extend such kindness to my person that I may come in peace, and be able in the General Council itself to make a public profession of my faith. For as I have taught nothing in secret, but only in public, where masters, graduates, priests, barons, knights, and others most do congregate, so I desire to be heard, not privately, but before a public audience, to be examined, to make my statement, and to reply, with the help of the Lord’s spirit, to all who may wish to charge me. And I shall not be afraid, I trust, to confess the Lord Jesus Christ and to suffer death, if needs be, for His true law. For the King of kings and the Lord of lords Himself, very God, though amongst us as a poor man, meek and humble, suffered for our sakes, leaving us an example that we should follow in his steps: he that did no sin, neither
- ↑ This gives the value that Hus, rightly or wrongly, attached to the famous safe-conduct. Cf. infra, 184, 229, 269. For a critical investigation of the whole subject, see my Age of Hus, pp. 282-93.
